SELF paid for the project with funds raised from grants, he said. SELF also signed a maintenance contract with a local company to ensure the microgrid would be maintained. SELF and BarefootLaw are now looking at ways to generate income to cover the ongoing costs of the microgrid.
Like the LawBox project, other microgrid projects in Uganda are serving the public good. The ATLAS Containerized Microgrid medical clinic, which won the top 2021 Microgrid Knowledge Greater Good Award, serves South Sudanese refugees residing in Northern Uganda. Before the microgrid was installed, medical practitioners at the health clinic struggled with unreliable power and difficult access to clean water.
The health clinic now uses 22 linear feet of a 40-foot container, with the remaining 18 feet used for the microgrid and water purification systems. The 10-kW solar microgrid also provides power for medical staff housing and is capable of offering additional power for expanded water supply and area lighting.
Microgrids powering Uganda villages
Other microgrid projects in Uganda are bringing power to villages for the first time.
A pilot project, funded by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation, demonstrated the benefits of solar providers partnering with a utility in Uganda to achieve electrification. Utility Umeme Uganda partnered with a renewable energy company and other organizations on a solar minigrid in Kiwumu, Uganda, that provides power to local businesses and about 300 homes. Developer Equatorial Power owns and operates the minigrid, and Umeme Uganda provides distribution assets — paid for by the grant — and a payment platform for customers.
In addition, London-based Winch Energy landed $16 million in funding, through a new financing platform, for solar minigrid projects in 49 villages in Uganda and Sierra Leone that will electrify villages there for the first time.
BarefootLaw helps boy return to school
The LawBox microgrid in Uganda is unique because it aims specifically to aid people seeking legal help. It has even served a boy who otherwise wouldn’t have had anywhere to turn, said Williams.
“A kid heard about the LawBox and how they settled things,” she said. The boy’s parents were divorced, and he wasn’t living with his father. The boy couldn’t go to school because his father wasn’t paying school fees, as promised. He turned to BarefootLaw’s LawBox for help.
“They invited the dad in and solved the problem,” she said.
The hope is to help many others solve disputes by deploying additional microgrid-powered LawBoxes, said Freling.
“We hope this will be a model replicated in Uganda and beyond,” he said.
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